Auburn Baseball: Where Are They Now? Auburn’s “The Big Hurt”

Here we take a look at former Auburn baseball legend Frank Thomas, who went on to having a hall-of-fame career in the MLB.

Frank Thomas came to Auburn baseball in 1986 intent on playing football and baseball, just like Bo Jackson had done in previous seasons.

But after one year on the football team, in which he caught three passes for 45 yards as a tight end, “The Big Hurt” stuck to baseball. It was the right decision.

In his first season with the Auburn baseball team, Thomas slugged 21 home runs and batted .359. He followed that up in 1988 with a .385 batting average and 9 home runs. And in his last season at Auburn, Thomas hit .403 with 19 dingers and 83 RBIs, a performance that earned him the SEC’s Most Valuable Player award.

His .568 on-base percentage during the 1989 season remains an Auburn record, and his .382 career batting average at Auburn is second all-time.

Thomas was selected in the first round of the 1989 baseball draft by the Chicago White Sox, and he was in the major leagues within a year.

The Columbus, Georgia, native then spent the next 16 years on the South Side of Chicago terrorizing American League pitching. In every year from 1991 to 1998, he had at least 100 runs scored, 20 home runs, a .300 batting average and 100 runs batted in — a record streak. He was back-to-back AL most valuable player in 1993 and 1994, becoming just the sixth player in American League history to win the award in consecutive seasons.

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After leaving the White Sox, Thomas played two years for the Oakland A’s and two years for the Toronto Blue Jays. He finished his major league career with 521 home runs, 1,704 RBIs and a batting average of .301. When he retired, his home runs ranked 18th overall, and his RBIs ranked 22nd overall.

Only Babe Ruth (12) and Lou Gehrig (nine) finished their baseball careers with more seasons with 100 runs, 100 RBIs, 20 home runs and a .300 batting average than Thomas, who had eight.

After retiring, the White Sox retired his No. 35 jersey and erected a statue in his honor at U.S. Cellular Field.

In 2014, Thomas was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 83.7 percent of the vote. It was his first year of eligibility, and he became the first player to be inducted having played more games as a designated hitter than in the field.

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For the past two years, Thomas has been seen on Fox Sports as an analyst on “MLB on Fox.”  He also runs a record label in Las Vegas and a brewpub in a Chicago suburb called “Big Hurt’s Brewhouse.”